Kinsley on health care
March 20, 2006
I don't agree with everything in this column, but Michael Kinsley points toward a reasonable compromise on health care: "Why modest reform is preferable to single-payer health care".
Krugman and Wells are persuasive—it's not a hard sell—about the nightmarish complexity and administrative costs of the current fragmented system. But they don't do much more than simply assert that a single, government-run insurance program would be more efficient. Even the most competitive industry can seem wasteful and inefficient when described on paper. Dozens of computer companies making hundreds of different, incompatible models, millions spent on advertising: Wouldn't a single, government-run computer agency producing a few standard models be more efficient? No, it wouldn't. Krugman and Wells duck the issue of rationing—saving money by simply not providing effective treatments that cost too much. They say let's try single-payer first. So, I say let's try some more modest reforms before plunging into single-payer.